


Dark Shadows

by Emjen_Enla



Series: Prompted Works [20]
Category: Raven Cycle - Maggie Stiefvater
Genre: (I guess?) - Freeform, Angst, Cross-Posted on Tumblr, Fast Cars, Gansey knows he's going to die, Gen, Late at Night, Pre-The Raven King, Surprisingly the Pig doesn't break down, all angst no comfort, midnight drives
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-16
Updated: 2019-08-16
Packaged: 2020-09-01 22:57:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,435
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20265880
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Emjen_Enla/pseuds/Emjen_Enla
Summary: "He was a king. This was the year he was going to die." Or Gansey goes for a drive and tries to deal with knowing he's going to die. Written for Gansey Week day four using the bonus prompt "dark shadows."





	Dark Shadows

**Author's Note:**

> Sorry for how late this is: it’s been a shitty day. So, here, have some Gansey angst. It’s 11pm here so I’m still technically on time.
> 
> This is actually my second attempt at the fic for day 4 because my first try (using today’s prompt) ended up with the same problem as one of @octoberparrish’s did where I tried writing a Noah & Gansey fic and it turned out too Noah-centric to be useful. I’ll probably post that fic next week.
> 
> Interestingly, this fic might also answer the prompt for day 2.
> 
> I have no idea how far Henrietta is from the mountains, but I remember that Adam goes there in one of the books (BLLB I think?) so I just went with it.
> 
> Also I love third person present tense, but it’s really hard to keep up when most of your writing is in third person past tense.

Gansey wakes up gasping for breath, his eyes wide with terror. He’s lying on his back in the middle of the partially rebuilt mini Henrietta. The room is dimly lit from the lamp on his desk and bathroom light which Ronan must have forgotten to turn off.

Gansey sits up slowly. His back is sore from the floor and his heart is still racing. He tries not to think about his dream. He’s been having nightmares more and more frequently as the week fly by and April 24th and the day he’ll definitely be dead creeps closer. During the day he can ignore it, but at night the fear seeps in through the cracks in his defenses until it overwhelms him.

He feels like he should be able to prepare for his inevitable death with a sense of peace. After all, he’s already died once. Aren’t people who survive things that should have killed them supposed to come out of it with some kind of perfect understanding of the world and the ability to accept anything which comes along regardless of how horrible it it? That’s what all the motivational speakers he’s ever heard say, but Gansey has had those experiences and all he knows is that he does not want to die again.

He scrambles to his feet and stumbles across the floor, stepping over the houses of mini Henrietta on his way to Ronan’s room. Ronan doesn’t sleep any more than Gansey does so he must be awake. They can go on a drive to the gas station or something and Gansey won’t have to think about his imminent death. If he and Ronan can go for a drive, everything will be alright.

He pushes the door to Ronan’s room open. “Ronan, do you want to-” then he stops because Ronan is asleep.

Gansey stands in the doorway to Ronan’s room staring at the almost unfathomable; Ronan Lynch at rest. Gansey rarely sees Ronan sleep if he’s not drunk, and he doesn’t appear to be tonight--at least there are no beer cans littering the floor and Gansey would know if he’d stumbled back in from somewhere else. Tonight Ronan is miraculously asleep.

Gansey stumbles backwards, only barely remembering to catch the door before it slams. He can’t wake Ronan now. No matter how much Gansey needs to not be alone right now, he cannot wake Ronan. Ronan gets so little sleep that Gansey can not interrupt it for anything. He will make do on his own; he always has.

He paces across the room and throws himself onto his bed. He should change into pajamas, go to bed and hope that he’ll be able to catch some more sleep tonight, but he does not want to be alone right now. Blue is probably asleep and after seeing Ronan sleeping so peacefully Gansey finds himself hesitant to wake her. Logically he knows that she wouldn’t care, but it feels wrong anyway. If he isn’t going to wake Ronan because he couldn’t stand to be alone, he shouldn’t wake Blue either. Adam is probably still awake, but Gansey can’t in good conscience do anything that would make it more difficult for Adam to get to sleep either. He just doesn’t want to bother anyone.

Monmouth is suddenly too close and constricting. Gansey bolts upright, stuffs his feet into his boat shoes and fumbles for his keys. He’s out the door and halfway to the Pig before he realizes he’s decided to go anywhere.

For once the Pig starts, Gansey enjoys the sound and feel of the car as he pulls out of the parking lot. Hopefully Ronan is sleeping deeply enough that the sound of the Pig turning on won’t wake him. Gansey would feel terrible if he went through so much trouble to not wake his friend only to end up waking him anyway.

Gansey drives to the gas station which has been the destination of most of his and Ronan’s late night escapades.This happens so frequently that the bored college student who works the night shift during the summer actually nods in greeting when Gansey comes in. Gansey makes his way to the back of the store where the refrigerators display all the bottled drinks. He opens the case and takes two bottles of orange juice mostly out of habit. He catches himself as he walks towards the register but doesn’t bother putting one bottle back; it will get drunk eventually.

After paying for the juice, Gansey finds himself back in the Pig, staring blankly at the dashboard. If Ronan was with him they would now go back to Monmouth and drink their orange juice in exhausted solidarity, but Gansey is alone tonight. He can go back to Monmouth but Ronan will still be asleep and he’ll have to drink his juice alone. He will be back in exactly the same position as he was before; alone when he desperately doesn’t want to be.

Not sure what else to do, he starts the car and begins to direct it in the direction of Monmouth. He gets halfway there before the thought of going back to the dark stillness waiting there becomes too much to bear. At the next stop sign, he turns and starts to head out of Henrietta on a back road leading towards the mountains.

As he leaves Henrietta, he rolls down the windows and hits the gas. He only means to reach the speed limit, but when he gets to 55 he just keeps accelerating. The wind whips through the open windows and the Pig’s engine roars. The speedometer keeps climbing but he doesn’t let up on the gas. This is ridiculous. Unlike Ronan, Gansey doesn’t know which roads the Henrietta Police Department doesn’t patrol. He could be speeding down a road regularly patrolled by cops. Not to mention, Gansey is supposed to be dead in a matter of months and crashing a car because you were driving too fast is as logical way as any to go. Even if he doesn’t crash and die, he could get pulled over or the Pig could die and the others will never let him hear the end of that. He should slow down.

His foot hits the floor. The Pig is flying and the engine remarkably sounds fine. Gansey has never driven this fast before. There’s a heady sense of freedom to it, the sort of freedom that you can only get when you’re hovering on the knife’s edge of a reckless death. Knowing what he does about his future, that should probably terrify Gansey, but somehow it doesn’t. He is in control here, not some nebulous fate. In this moment, he thinks he might understand why Ronan races.

He doesn’t slow down until he hits the foothills and the roads get too winding to safely drive full speed. He thinks about turning around, but then remembers the aloneness of Monmouth. He feels much better out here with just him and the Pig.

He drives until the sky begins to lighten in preparation for the sunrise and he starts to worry that if he doesn’t turn around soon he won’t have the gas to get back to Henrietta. He pulls over on the side of the road and turns the Pig off. He sits in the driver’s seat for a while, fingers drumming on the steering wheel thinking about everything and nothing. Much too late, he realizes that he left his cell phone at Monmouth. That’s something of a problem. Under normal circumstances Ronan would never call him, but if he wakes up and Gansey is gone, he might be worried enough to call anyway. Gansey should turn around and try to get home before Ronan wakes up and starts worrying about him. Gansey doesn’t want Ronan to worry about him.

But he also still isn’t ready to go back to Monmouth. Soon he’ll be ready, but not quite yet. Moving slowly, Gansey unbuckles his seatbelt and snatches one of the bottles of orange juice from where they’re riding in the passenger seat. He climbs out of the Pig and walks to the safety railing at the side of the road to look out across the mountains. He’s picked an unexpectedly good place to pull over. He has a clear view to the east that is perfect for watching the sunrise. After a few minutes he returns to the Pig and hitches himself up on its cooling hood, feet braced against the front bumper, staring out at the rapidly brightening sky.

He drinks his orange juice as the sun rises.

**Author's Note:**

> Now I want orange juice.


End file.
